“I suppose we’d better get moving,” Vivian commented, looking in that direction, shading her eyes against the sun. “We can spend the night in town if we decide to, but the ace will want to get there before the thundershowers do.”
The two women entered the tower; Hildy closed the door firmly behind them, and they started down the winding stone stair. The narrow stair curved counterclockwise as you descended, Saul said to give a defending right-handed swordsman the advantage as he retreated upward. As she passed one of the narrow decorative windows Hildy looked down into the courtyard some sixty feet below, and saw that the workmen were giving the swimming pool a trial filling. It certainly ought to be ready for use by Friday afternoon. Now, in a matter of minutes, she was going to get into a machine with her lover Saul at the controls, and fly. She felt dreamy, drifty, ready to let go and enjoy the ride.
She asked Vivian: “What were medieval swimsuits like, I wonder?”
Vivian’s laugh was quietly musical. “They looked very much like medieval pajamas, I’m afraid.”
“Not a stitch in sight?”
“Exactly. Saul and I got away with skinny-dipping in the river a few times when we were little. One of our cousins from across the river put us up to it… he was quite a nasty little boy. But we’d better not encourage the weekend guests to carry this medieval thing too far.”
The stairway brought them into a hallway that had not existed in the original structure, on the third level of the castle above the ground. Again the walls were stone, and ancient sconces held unlighted torches against the walls. But there were electric lights as well, recessed and inconspicuous; there were bedrooms, bathrooms, closets, designed in at the time of reconstruction in the early twentieth century. The old place was really in remarkably good shape, thought Hildy, considering how many decades it had been standing almost empty and almost unoccupied since it was rebuilt. She had to admit that old Gregory, though she didn’t like him, had certainly done a good job as caretaker.
Saul, still in tennis clothes as was his bride, was standing halfway down the long hall, telling some more workmen in which room to put an antique bed. The process of refurnishing was coming along faster than Hildy had thought it would.
Hildy hurried to embrace her tall husband, bury her face for a moment against his chest, smelling of sweat and exercise and sunlight. Saul, murmuring something, returned the hug; he seemed half-distracted, as he usually was these days, thinking about business.
The three of them walked on down the hall, one young woman on each side of Saul.
“It’s been fun, kids,” said Vivian. “But soon I’m going to be moving out.”
“Oh?” Hildy, feeling vague alarm, looked across at her. “Where to?”
“Sometimes I wonder, how are you guys ever going to heat this place in the winter? This isn’t southern California, you know. It gets cold in these parts.”
Saul put in: “The old hot water system is still working. And there are a lot of fireplaces.” He turned to Hildy with a vague expression of concern. “We could think about having some baseboard electric put in, I suppose.”
“Don’t start that before the weekend,” his sister cautioned him. “By the way, Gregory tells me that the magician he wanted to get is coming.”
Saul said: “Fine. It looks like everyone we invited is going to be here.”
FOUR
At dawn he had been sitting crouched on the curb. His feet, in their broken, mismatched shoes, were braced in the littered gutter, as ready as they could be made for their part in a quick spasmodic effort at getting his body erect. When the morning sun started to get warm, the sense of desperation and impending peril faded, and he moved into a building’s shade and got his aged shoulder-blades against a solid storefront. It was not the shade he sought; such warmth as this northern sun could generate could never really bother him. It was the support he wanted. He was very tired. If he dared let himself lean back against anything during the night, he tended to go to sleep; if he slept he could not remain on guard, and it was imperative to remain on guard during the hours of darkness. Whenever he nodded off by night lately he came jolting awake, crying out through his old throat in nightmare’s helpless terror.
He found himself wondering, sometimes, why the prospect of his own murder could shake him so. His life had long been robbed of everything that would make it worth worrying about. But this wondering was no defense against night’s terror.
Now morning daylight lent his surroundings gritty reality enough for him to be able to rest in metaphysical security. As he allowed himself to sit leaning back against the building, his hands, stubby-fingered, the basically pale skin polished beyond grime, could be let down to rest one on each side of him on the Chicago sidewalk. During the warm June night just past his hands had stayed most of the time clutched round himself as if he might be cold, as if his own embrace could possibly protect him from the terror that walked—and flew, and crawled, for all he knew—by night. Now, in daylight brightness and warmth, and with people nearby—even such people as the Street afforded—maybe now he would be able to get some sleep.
Even if dreams came before wine.
News of the killings, of the evil, blood-draining torture-slaughters of helpless old men, had in the past days traveled up and down the Street like wind. Borne somehow in alcoholic breath, in muttered half-words, in faces frightened into speechlessness. Even though you might think that none of the people here ought to be afraid of death…
His eyes closed, already drifting near sleep as he leaned back against the building, he heard a pair of feet in unmatched shoes approaching, slowing to a stop. Without bothering to open his eyes he could identify their shuffle.
“Hey, Feathers?” called the expected voice.
Despite himself the man called Feathers sometimes remembered that in some dim lifetime before he’d hit the Street his name had been something else. But that didn’t matter, hadn’t mattered for a long time now. He smiled now with what teeth he had left, knowing what this approach meant. Already it seemed to him that he could taste the wine, and he opened his tired eyes with quiet joy, ready to listen.
As he had expected, his visitor now launched into a long, detailed and almost completely unnecessary explanation of a simple scheme of pooling coins from several contributors in order to obtain a bottle. To the organizer of the scheme its prospects appeared bright. The man called Feathers grew impatient well before the end of the explanation, but some people deserved to be treated with courtesy, and anyway he understood what the organizer himself perhaps did not, that listening patiently and sociably was really part of the payment for being allowed to participate without being cheated. And so Feathers listened, nodding with assumed patience whenever agreement seemed to be called for, and in the end he contributed half a dollar. It was his only money in the world, and he gave it in trust, having done business with the firm before. The agreement promised that sometime today he would share wine, and he could at least hope for enough that bad dreams would be again postponed.
Alone again, still sitting on the sidewalk with his back against the storefront, he watched a pair of drunken women reeling along the far side of the street. There was a sight offensive to morality. The two suddenly broke into a quarrel, letting out horrible sodden gasps and cackles… that women should be here at all was a terrible thing, and he could see that one of these had been lovely and young not long ago… never again… in pain, Feathers closed his eyes again, willing his thoughts elsewhere.
Today, as sometimes happened, the sleep that he had expected and yearned for refused to come. The day continued to pass anyway, as all days did. He waited for his investment in wine futures to bear fruit. Meanwhile he did his best to avoid thought. Just for variety he moved back to the curb and sat there for a while again. And then once more he shifted into shade, getting his back against a different building.
He dozed at last…
“Hey, Feathers? All I need now’s a quarter. One more fuggin’ quarter, man.”
“Got no more money.” Under the circumstances he considered that a courteous reply.
“You got a dime?”
He closed his eyes again. His bladder pained him lightly. Soon he would have to decide if it was worth the trouble of going into an alley before he voided. Yeah, he had lasted a long time on the Street. A long, long time. Still there had been a time in his life before the Street, when things were not like this. Not like this…
